QPT - first carving attempts

Started carving the panel. 

Did an outline of everything first. 

Then started clearing large areas. 

Next started enhancing lines and layer effects. This has turned out to be quite tricky and I ended up removing too much in some areas and should have been paying closer attention to how the picture looked instead of kind of carving it how I assumed it was, then realizing after that I wasn't quite right. 

Went back and began deepening everything and shaping thugs closer to the picture. 

This was about an hour's worth of carving. Stopping for now 'cause I'm heading over to a friends to talk illumination, and because the bones in my hand are vibrating from all the dremelling. 

QPT Progress - preparing the blanks

My project idea for this Queen's Prize Tourney is to reproduce a small section of the Franks Casket, using cattle bone as my medium. 

This is the little section I would like to do. 

Unfortunately, today as I was cutting out the pieces of bone to make the blanks for carving, disaster struck! 

The bone split in two as I was sawing it into shape!

So, now I have only one narrow section of bone instead of two, which means only half of the above picture will fit on it. 

I've gone ahead and drawn out the left half of the scene on my panel, and will focus my efforts on that. 

If I have the time, I may try to sand down the two broken halves of the second panel and carve it in two pieces, but we'll see. Honestly, trying to get the first half carved may be project enough!